Against the Wind: Eberhard Arnold and the Bruderhof - Plough

Against the Wind
22 Diary entry for October 8, 1930, Brothers Unite, 158.
23 “Vetter” is a Hutterian term of resect reserved for older men and ministers.
24 Transcript of Gemeindestunde [worship meeting], Rhön Bruderhof, December 26, 1934, BA.
25 Irmgard Keiderling to Else von Hollander, May 27, 1931, Brothers Unite, 250. Stephan Wehowsky’s
assumption is completely untenable when he suggests that Eberhard worked to unite with the Hutterian
communities only to save a settlement project from collapse (in Religiöse Interpretation politischer
Erfahrung [Religious interpretation of political experience] (Göttingen: 1980, 127).
26 Irmgard Keiderling to Else von Hollander, May 15, 1931, Brothers Unite, 250.
ChaptEr fourtEEn
1 Quoted by Irmgard Keiderling in a letter to Else von Hollander, May 15, 1931, BA.
2 Diary entry for July 21, 1930, Brothers Unite, 86ff.
3 Quoted by Irmgard Keiderling in a letter to Else von Hollander, May 15, 1931, BA.
4 In March 1931 Eberhard wrote in his diary about the reason for the Hutterites’ prohibition of musical
instruments: “The question at issue is simply about the way to express religion, in particular that no
idolatry, including that of musical sensibility, shall take the place of faith in the Spirit.”
5 Transcript of brotherhood meeting, May 27, 1935, BA.
6 Transcript of brotherhood meeting, August 22, 1931, BA.
7 Referring to the numerous old Anabaptist songs from times of harshest persecution, Arnold Pfeiffer
writes in Religiöse Sozialisten [Religious-socialists] (Olten, 1976) that the carefree mood of the first
volume has given way in the second to “a world-rejecting, mournful sound.” He completely fails to realize
that Sonnenlieder II does not replace the first volume, but rather supplements it.
8 The exact date of this diary entry is unclear, but it falls between December 19 and 25, 1930, BA.
9 According to Irmgard Keiderling’s report to Else von Hollander, May 15, 1931, BA.
10 Mentioned by Eberhard in May–June 1931 in his letter to Peter Hofer, James Valley, Manitoba: “…
important and urgent that our beloved David Vetter is soon sent to us from your Bruderhof.” In fact
David Vetter was among the first delegation of brothers to visit the Rhön Bruderhof, but that visit was
not until 1937, two years after Eberhard’s death.
11 Transcript of brotherhood meeting, August 11, 1929, BA.
12 Eberhard Arnold to Elisabeth Arnold, June 18, 1934, BA.
13 Transcript of guest meeting, June 1932, BA.
14 Transcript of guest meeting, June 18, 1932, BA.
15 It had actually been a call to violence against Eberhard: “Strike him dead!”
16 Eberhard Arnold to Emmy Arnold, June 18, 1930, Brothers Unite, 67.
17 John Hoyland, in his preface to The Early Christians after the Death of the Apostles (Wiltshire, England:
The Plough Publishing House, 1939), 22, 33. (It should be noted that, although this edition carried the
translated title of Eberhard’s original work, it was not a comprehensive translation, and only included
Eberhard’s survey of the early church.)
18 Transcript of brotherhood meeting, July 26, 1933, BA.
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